Matthew 18 You should go to your brother in private instead of posting publicly like this.

Abuse survivors and advocates and pastors and many others have gone privately to the leaders of Bob Jones University many times asking for reconciliation in matters of alleged serious wrongdoing. We know of abuse survivors who even in their weakness were so strong that they tried again and again to address the problems privately. They tried long past the point when many would have given up. Some changes have been made, but many of what some would call the most fundamental problems appear to have remained unaddressed.

Since Bob Jones University appears to have no accountability to any higher earthly authority, once the course of going privately is spent, there appears to be no more recourse. This seems especially sad because our understanding is that the University has said through the years that they want to be accountable to their alumni.

As a matter of observation, going in private is apparently not the course to be followed in every case. Jesus, as far as we know, didn’t go to the Pharisees in private before calling them out in public, in shockingly scathing terms. It appears that this is because their secret actions were of a criminal nature, the kind that need to be dealt with in a public way, for the purifying of the church and for the safety of society.